One of college football’s most exciting – if not the most exciting – players in Georgia running back Todd Gurley will be in the Heisman discussion from the get-go, but Mark Richt said yesterday that Gurley doesn’t need a Heisman campaign, when answering a fan’s question, via Athens Banner-Herald.

“I don’t think you have to have a campaign for the Heisman. I think the numbers will speak for themselves,” Richt said. “I think his highlights will speak for themselves. The Heisman usually goes to a team that’s winning and somebody that’s just doing superb work, and has a little bit of a flare about him.

“I really believe preseason most people would put him top five in the Heisman race. I don’t think we have to do anything to help that. I’d be shocked if he wasn’t first- or second-team All-American in just about every single poll. I think he’s that good. If he’s healthy, if he’s in shape, and if he’s really playing as well as he can.”

Gurley will enter the season on nearly every top five Heisman favorites’s list. However, over the last 10 years, only two running backs have won the prestigious award, with Reggie Bush having to vacate it. Alabama’s Mark Ingram was the last halfback to hoist the award, and quarterbacks have been quite selfish with the award. The last non-quarterback or running back to win the award was Michigan’s Charles Woodson in 1997.

Nevertheless, Gurley will be in the thick of the race throughout the season, assuming he stays healthy and Georgia stays in SEC contention.

Gurley will be on the national stage the first two games of the season against Clemson and South Carolina, and if things go Georgia’s way, the Bulldogs can always help create more awareness of his superb play at any point during the season.

Gurley rushed for 989 yards and 10 touchdowns last year, after an electrifying freshman season that saw him rush for 1,385 punishing yards and 17 touchdowns.

Photo Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

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COMMENTS

Who would want to be named to the H-trophy watch list? This would associate you with Cam Newton whose family clearly believes in cheating, and Johnny Football who just has a bag man running around cheating for him, plus acts like a self-centered twit, and J.Winston who will surely continue to have legal problems because of fishy dealings in relationships and retail establishments. The campaign that is needed would be to train the H-trophy voters how college football suffers from their bad decisions.